Hypertext Almanac

Yuri Gagarin

Yuri Gagrin, the first man in space, would have been celebrating his 75th birthday on March 9.

Gagarin was the first to make a manned space flight on board the Vostok spaceship on April 12, 1961. The flight around the Earth took 108 minutes, after which he safely landed in the Saratov Region. He [died in an air crash](http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=13658296&PageNum=0) in the Vladimir Region during a training flight on board a Mig-15 fighter plane together with Colonel Vladimir Seryogin on March 27, 1968.